altara

Saturday, August 12, 2017

VA march

Commenting on the violence at the Virginia white supremacist rally, President Trump condemned the
hatred, bigotry, and violence "on many sides". Never once mentioned white supremocists. A new low for this president.

Wednesday, August 09, 2017

Health care

As I've said many times, it is far from wise to insert insurance companies (with their marketing costs, excessive executive compensation, and profits) between patient and provider. Much of health care is preventive, regular, and chronic - not an insurable risk. Health is a right and, as with most advanced companies, provided universally.

Fortunately, the US has good working system in place - Medicare. So we should provide Medicare-for-All. Everyone pays a monthly fee, so that all participants support the system, not just some of the insurance buyers. Lots of details need to be worked out: payments for children (parents?), payments for the destitute, etc. With the government being the supporter of last resort, all taxpayers are supporting the system.

More controversial would be my hope for controlling high health care costs (much more costly than in other countries): require all providers to charge only the sum Medicare specifies, which now is the reimbursable sum. Aside from just allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies, this "price-fixing" would face certain political and legal challenges.